Thursday May 30th 2019
In the two weeks since I departed Florida I’ve been dodging bad weather. My biggest concession to the weather was changing my route to a more southerly route. I also sped up and slowed down my journey west to avoid weather issues. Today the rain finally caught me.
This morning a few brief rain showers interspersed with attempts at clearing were the pattern. Late in the morning it looked like the sunshine had finally won the battle. I used the opportunity to start my touring in the area. As I departed the campground a big black cloud was approaching across the valley. It caught up with me as a thunderstorm very quickly. The rain was so hard I chose to pull into one of the roadside turnouts and wait out the storm. This storm lasted longer than any of the morning rain showers. Eventually I was able to continue up the road.
The rain wasn’t over. After a brief reprieve heavy rain returned. I stopped at the Red Canyon visitors center of the Dixie National Forest to get off the road again. The rain kept me in my car for fifteen minutes before I was able to get into the building without getting soaked through. After touring the exhibits and the gift shop I ventured out again. In the light rain I walked a little ways along a path toward a couple of Hoodoos behind the visitors center. The trail was very muddy but I was able to get to a clear area to take a picture or two before the heavier rain returned.
It was clear that touring in the rain was not going to be a pleasant experience, so I started back to my RV home. As I got near my home base the rain stopped completely. The valley looked clear of rain so I continued past the campground and turned north in the valley. Before I found anything of interest in that direction another big black cloud was moving in from the west. A retreat to the safety and dry conditions of my RV home was in order.
It continued to rain hard with a few brief dry spells all afternoon. My evening the sun broke through enough that I’d call the condition partly cloudy. A little bit of a sunset was even visible at 8:45PM. Tomorrow sounds a little better. The chance of showers isn’t as high and the temperature is forecast to be a little higher than today’s sixty. I really want to hike some of the trails in the area, but I don’t want to slog through the mud.
